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Google's new algorithm appears to be switching randomly to different datacenters with different results. I'm tracking 6 different datacenters in the Phoenix, AZ area.

For some of my main keyword phrases, I'm in the top 10 in three, in the 50s in the 4th, in the 300 range in the 5th and nowhere in the sixth. This is part of the Allegra update that started Feb 5. I think Google is trying to randomize the results so that searchers do not always see the same results with each search.

The result is that your site will most likly show different ranking positions with different searches. A lot of people think their rankings are bouncing wildly, but it's just the results from different datacenters. It makes more sense if you check the datacenter to see which one is currently displaying.

You can do this by checking the IP address on the cached copy of a Web page:

remember a while back , i told you that googlebot visits my site everyday,,
you know its still doing it...
its msn that is on the move..
yesterday all my pages went from msn,
today they are back, plus more..

Find us at shareasale.com 12% commissionShareasale Merchant 7191PLAZANSKINCARE As seen on TV . Used by Jennifer Lopez

There are huge numbers of site owners that are fed up with G's antics. I think most people are currently seeing better results with the new MSN search engine. .

It really doesn't matter to google how upset the webmasters get. If the people doing the searching still like them, they will still be top dog.

According to the article at http://searchenginewatch.com/reports...le.php/2156451
google is still the top as of January. That would be expected - Even if people are starting to try other search engines it will take a long time to shift this behavior. The average person doesn't realize that they are missing a lot of relevant returns with google now - as they say, "out of sight, out of mind". When friends tell friends "I found the site on yahoo/msn, didn't it show up on google?" the shift away from google will begin.

If someone here has access to past ratings, please provide a summary. I would be curious to know if there has been any shift.

This World is Not My HomeWe're gonna go inside, we're gonna go outside, inside and outside. . . And then we're gonna go go go and we're not gonna stop til we get across that goalline! Quotes from the movie Rudy, 1993

I've had a number of comments from people that I know that they're having a 'harder' time finding what they're looking for on Google. I listen politely and don't give out a lot of advice because they all seem to come to the conclusion that they're asking the 'wrong' questions, so... Google is giving them the 'wrong' information.

Change that, and maybe you'll see Yahoo and MSN moving up dramatically.

Those of us that have been Netizens for many years can remember when AltaVista was the top search engine. Who is AltaVista today? No longer a player.

When Google entered the picture, it provided much better results than AltaVista and it did not take long for them to take over the search market. Google is currently having a difficult time dealing with over 8 billion pages in their index. It is feasible for someone with a better idea to take over.

I know a lot of people have mixed feelings about M$ taking over another market, but at this point MSN search results are looking good to a lot of people. It just needs to catch on with users because without users migrating to MSN, MSN cannot drive significant amounts of traffic.

As much as I LOVE MSN's new results (and it seems to like me ) I have to say MSN has never done a deep crawl of any of my sites and usually comes to my front page or a page that has a simple URL. I have some sites that are DB driven with a mix of simple and long URLS.

Google so far has been the only engine to do a deep crawl of my sites with longer urls and more specific results --actually have each individual product as opposed to my MSN results which are more generalized or category oriented.

The weird thing about this latest google change, is that my site description now shows what is listed in the google directory. Nothing from my index page shows up, page title, tags, etc. It is also showing the cache date as being back in February.

Microsoft is the most active spider on our sites and has been for a number of months, consistently and methodically spidering everything, and (it looks like) starting the process all over again when it is finished. Sort of like an Accountant Spider: boring but thorough.

Yahoo is the Ritalin Spider. 200 one day, 40,000 the next, then 500 on day three, 30,000 on day four, 150 on day five.

Google is like the Relation from Hell. Nice to see it stop around, but it gets to the point you can't wait for it to leave. Usually a couple of thousand calls a day. Then it goes to tens of thousands a day. Then it just goes freaking nuts like yesterday when it asked for 160,000+ calls and from all indications, it looks like it'll do it again today. Wouldn't mind the visit, but 8,000 index pages in one day says something is wrong here.

Since I started doing consulting there's 2 sites I have not touched in about a year, but I have seen them go from google to yahoo to msn and back to yahoo. They have been dropped almost completely from google lately. I do not know why, since very little update and no changes have been made, to these 2 sites to rank well in yahoo.

Without even doing any updating I have made more money from yahoo and then from msn then all the other times they were doing good in google.

So, don't rely on just one SE, optimize for any of them. I know there will be other SE developed someday, I remember Altavista too and was one of my favorites, now msn is looking like the next to watch, but not fall in love with just incase.

"I know a lot of people have mixed feelings about M$ taking over another market, but at this point MSN search results are looking good to a lot of people."

I don't know about that. They'll never take over the SE market, the best they can do is get better and hang out with Google and Yahoo. If anything i think people maybe be going to Google or Yahoo, have to wait until new numbers come out. One of the few pages they have managed to index is in the same position as when they were using INK and i'm getting less traffic. There's a thread over at WMW with people noticing the same thing. Same page position in the new MSN Search as they were in MSN/INK the but less traffic. Time will tell, but i can't see the average Google or Yahoo user quitting them and moving over to what MSN is showing now. They still have a ways to go. As far as somebody else coming in and knocking one of the big 3 out, just ain't going to happen. There's no market for a new SE, people are satisified with what they're getting. If they don't like 1 of the big 3, one of the other 2 will do the trick. As far as relevancy:

I'm not predicting that MSN is going to take over the search marketplace. It's just wishful thinking becaue of all of the anxiety G creates for all the site owners who depend upon G rankings for their business.

Inktomi Slurp is the one I see the most of on my sites right now, followed closely by Googlebot and then midway back from there something called "LinkWalker" what ever the heck that is

I'd like to see something new come on to the scene with a little power and backing to give the rest a enough of a jolt that they stop playing the shuffling game...but I'm up for hints on what/who it'll be